Breath

The breath of autumn is now well upon us. It scatters the leaves as well as my mind, and puts the quick into my step. As in life and age, autumn has a way of shifting the unimportant away. In our cold clime that first freeze can be an icy slope. One descends from warmth to frozen in a day or two. No lollygag of a New York City autumn -there is terminus.

The paper wasps have finally crawled deeply into buildings and the ants have long left the work atop their mounds. There is a grasshopper on the garage wall, but no longer in the garden. Flies find their way in as do lady beetles and what remains of the mosquito swarm has descended into the basement stairwell.  A woolly bear and a large wood spider hastened from the unfinished studio. A week ago I heard the frog's last chirp.

Last week we had our first frost, and tonight, should the skies clear, we will have our first freeze. We can now accept bringing in plants, out of sympathy for them, as we do with our pets. Will the lantana come in? Will the begonia tubers be saved? Should I unearth the rosemary and pot it?

Despite better planning, the fall vegetables have not gone as hoped. Cauliflower was a wash, and the broccoli too. Green beans just a week or two too late and nibbled. Brussels sprouts have more leaf than sprout thus far. Spring planted broccoli continues to flourish. Eggplants always do better until they just can't and I have yet to harvest the majority of potatoes.

 

Although it is nearing winter (it comes earlier here), there are still several outdoor projects to complete. I need to replace a porch balustrade, cedar plank the utility room landing and replace several mossy and rotted plank ends on the porch. There is a window frame to repair -it should not go another winter, but it is on the second floor and I don't prefer ladders. A brick walkway has remained a gravel trench. The gutters continue to fill with leaves -this can wait, but not beyond snowfall. Warmer temperatures are required to apply a second coat of paint to the alcove where siding, sill, and door were replaced by the height of summer. The studio has much remaining, but there is now power and today the concrete contractor is placing the insulation foam. Progress. Should I call the mudjacker for the sidewalk that cants to the house? Is there time? Is there money?

Stairway

Could a dying man's last wish be a new set of steps? In his slow decay is it trying or comforting to see rotten and skewed rebuilt upright? Is time best spent fixing the things that can be fixed? Our answer was yes, so Betsy and I spent the last ten days or so in Minnesota rebuilding the porch legs and constructing a new staircase with Rex's blessing. He and his aide sat porch side, observing, while we took to our work.

The porch was sinking in the northeast corner, evident at the junction of house and porch where a gap had formed over the years. It wasn't until we removed the porch steps and it's stock standard, 45 degree, three step stringer that we could begin to see the whole of the problem. The house architectural drawings indicated below the frost-line 12 inch concrete piers and 4x4 treated posts. The problem was that these posts were to some degree covered at the base with wet clay soil, not at all elevated above the moisture-holding concrete, and not at all anchored in any way to the concrete piers.  They simply rotted and moved from their original position allowing the porch to slowly pull downward. Although our intention was only to replace the staircase, and as is so often the case, when you look into it you realize the full extent of the work before you.

First, remove the old staircase, the lattice work under deck, then the fascia boards.

Old, rotten-bottom posts removed as we jack up the porch with a very old school jack. 

New treated posts installed with steel post-header ties (the old were toe-nailed).

Not choice, but available: plastic post bottoms to separate the new post from the concrete pier. Each is said to be good for five thousand pounds.

We also compromised on the anchor -galvanized steel angles at the back of each post, then each post backfilled with course gravel.

I found this blue-spotted salamander, Ambystoma laterale, under the plastic near one of the posts. Trying to get it out, it only climbed in deeper, so I let it be. I wonder how it keeps dirt out of those bulging black eyes.

After the posts were set and anchored we set about doing the staircase. The main complaint about the old steps was their steep incline and rickety railings (they had rotten) so we stretched the run to five feet from the porch. This changed the configuration from four, eleven-inch treads with eight-inch risers to six, twelve-inch treads with five and three quarter-inch risers.  The longer run had the structure landing on the concrete pad, adding concern about frost heave (which every one else was less concerned with). We compromised by designing the railings so that they are integral to the staircase structure but do not attach at all to the posts holding up the porch roof. This allowed us to remove the chance that frost heave pressure would be applied to the porch posts.

I reused as much of the original cedar risers as I could, but this also meant that I was limited by their length. We had wanted to overshoot the stringer sides by an inch or so but the old boards wouldn't allow it. We compromised by bringing the riser board to the top of the tread instead of behind it, and extended the tread board just a half inch on either side.

The treads were notched around the posts.

I fitted the post notch with a small piece of cedar to fill.

The different shades of cedar on a cloudy day.

While it was a marathon effort for him, Rex made the journey out to see the finished staircase. The following afternoon, I found him sitting on them.  I don't think I will get as much joy out of doing these projects without him there to appreciate it. Things need to be done, to be sure, but his glowing appraisal makes it worth the extra effort. As I had to leave to get back to work in NYC, not two days after I wrapped up the work on the staircase, I knew I could be seeing him for the last time. He said to me "you have value, remember that." Seems like such a simple thing, but it chokes me up. Rex was motivated to get the staircase rebuilt because his elderly friends were having trouble climbing the old set when they came to visit. I suppose, then, that a staircase could be a last wish. It's a way to extend oneself beyond the boundaries of life and death, a courtesy to those friends who will thank me for the effort and good work, at his house, soon enough.

Autumnal

There has been a heavier heart this big woods trip. Rex likes to say that there are only two things in nature -chaos and chance. I like to say that the only thing between civilization and chaos is maintenance.

From the very first day, we've been at work on the house as rot has set in. We stem the tide and wait for next summer. 

The air has been cool, and I have seen the leaves changing, day to day. 

This morning, Rex and Betsy left at 5:30 for the Mayo Clinic. I left for breakfast around 6:45 and saw Autumn's first mist on the marshlands.

The trails have not been worked, and have not been walked. There's no greater sign to the changing of things in the woods. Oak wilt has taken out more of the red oaks, and old falls have not been sawed. Nettles grow, obscuring the path for the first time in my decade of coming here.

Indian Pipe appears ghostly for the first time.

The bridge is missing planks, and most have rotten through. It is now dangerous to cross the marsh unaware.

The chicken, laetiporous, the one focus from the changes afoot.

Dream Repair

For those of you dreaming of building a big house in the suburbs, or the country -a few words of advice. In order to build out the attic with a half bath, or to have a carpeted room over the garage (a little bit of hers/his?) or even to find a way to get a double sink full bath with whirlpool and shower, do not, simply do not sacrifice the quality of your materials and shuck the value of time worn techniques. No, it doesn't matter that your GM or your carpenter tells you he can do without the house wrap or tar paper. Don't listen to him when he tells you he can save you a bundle by using half-inch OSB and staples for the sheathing. And simply walk away, or better -give him the hand, when he lets you in on a little known secret in siding technology that will save you so much that all your dreams will come true.

Because this is what happens. In 10 years. An OSB sheathed and sided house in a cold and wet climate is a sin. Forgo the house wrap, and you'll be sent straight to hell. Having saved so much on these items, you decided then to build the house extra large. It's a good thing the siding is so cheap because you now have even more surface area to cover with it. A house built this large is not a throwaway item, but it doesn't matter, because your rationality was clogged by your outsized dreams, your magnificent belief in the power of house and home.

Over the last four summers, my wife and I have been replacing the siding and sheathing on Rex's house. For the record, he did not build this house -he bought it from those who did (divorce, ugly). He bought it for the woods; the house he has changed not one bit from the day he bought it 9 years ago. Sometimes I fantasize that this house would burn down, replaced by insurance money that would build a smaller, well-built house. But Rex is too old for all that turmoil. He's happy that we work on the structure, staving off more costly repairs.

On this day, although we had greater goals, we ran out of materials and called it a year. It was hot and humid, phantom mosquitoes biting along with the real ones. Southerly flow, storm's coming. Let's hit Little Long before the rain. As we rolled from the concrete pad, we were amazed by the hundreds of large dragon flies circling and spiraling the front yard. An event.

The phenomena continued on the road to Little Long Lake. In some spots, birds flocked to wires, apparently to catch dragonflies. The roads here are dirt and gravel and this one is being widened and paved.

The water was cold -at first. A slight breeze was being pulled in by the thunderstorms to our east. The rain never came. We were the only swimmers. There was a man with a dog fishing in a boat.

Can you see the fish?

You can see the watermilfoil, Myriophyllum spicatum. Imagine it like underwater mint.

Little Long has little of houses on it. To the west is an esker. The trail I imagined last year passes by the lake along the esker.

Purple Loosestrife makes its appearance in many, but not all, of the marshes around here. It's a wonderful addition where it is spotty, undoubtedly part of how it perseveres. Rex says it is declining in the area, but I am skeptical.

Hummingbird

Yesterday, from the roof where we are replacing the rotten siding, sun behind the trees, I spotted a hummingbird darting around Rex's garden. I never see them away from those sugarwater feeders. So I watched it, as it went from flower to flower, including impatiens! Who knew those could have wildlife impact?